America Street, U.S.A. #8 T.V.
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America Street USA. A series of programs produced by
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radio station gave Jacey FM at Foothill College in Los Altos California.
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But I think the really hard but the good news.
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In the city of Sunnyvale California there is a street named America street.
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Families of many different backgrounds live on the street and in the immediate neighborhood.
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It's a melting pot of America in miniature. What are the
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feelings the attitudes the texture of life on America's street.
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What do these Americans think about America as it is today. For if we are to
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approach the reality of the American experiment in democracy we must
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know understand and respond to the opinions of America straight
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in this series of programs. We ask you to imagine that you are overhearing a discussion
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among the residents of America straight as occasionally compared and contrasted with
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informed opinion from other sources. Today's topic. Television in
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America.
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Sacramento in through the valley there 30.
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30. Take. Us.
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To our questions on the topic television in America focused on two points of
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current and controversy all interest. Does TV portray an accurate picture of
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life in America and what about violence on TV.
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Perhaps in a more general sense our question was What role does TV play in the lives
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of Americans today you know when what he what he went by
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was basically to forget
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the point that right now I think children have been the
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way you think in this case maybe
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half an hour.
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Want carrots.
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Well sometimes I can say that I watch TV a little bit not too much
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but
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I don't go for to see the movie.
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Well I think actually within the last two
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years we've kind of the program going to
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crash where we don't want too much TV anymore.
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Could I could I just say that I think TV is is really one of the most wonderful things that we could ever
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have and I think the shots of them and all the wonderful things we see on TV in the
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documentaries are fantastic and if they had more of this type of thing then more
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stimulating things for intellectual type programs I think are much better
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in the same reduction. Well the things that are really have
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something to tell have something that is well covered.
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And I think they do a fantastic job when they want to do it by watching TV I don't want
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to watch this force. I know this is an excellent job of
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programming sports events golf and some of these things.
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Very good question.
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No I'm not sure that America is
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supposed to as entertainment entertain entertain
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and I'm sure the average American family would be entertained as they are
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this is something that would be violence all over again.
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The 1969 annual report of the AC Nielsen Company states that over 95
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percent of the households in the continental United States own at least one television set
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at the peak of the TV season in U.S. households averaged well over 6 hours of daily
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viewing for an entire week. The total was forty three hours and 34
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minutes. And the man of the house averaged over 23 hours of viewing per
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week.
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Well this just 16 hours to hear when I am
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off I'm usually very tired but I usually watch TV just.
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Definitive proof is a relaxed you're giving it helps knowing that
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it wasn't there.
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Orders are not part of my language but I would just if
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I were if I were forced to go home and just sit
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down and try to make conversation I guess from that
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standpoint I see what you're getting at I think.
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TV from that standpoint has become a dominating factor but
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my god I can't remember them you know. I'm not old enough that I can remember when there was a
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time when I was on TV there was radio will always be something but I really don't believe
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even though two people married to each other or know each other they can just sit down at
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night Aconite just talk with each other you rather face to talk to talk about you really do.
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In an article in the September 968 issue of Commentary magazine
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television critic Neil Compton said the last five horrific years
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have clearly demonstrated if a demonstration was necessary. The television is no longer a
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secondary and contingent factor in American life. But part of the very fabric of corporate
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existence that the TV versions of some major events have come to
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seem more authentic than the unmediated occurrences themselves is due not merely
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to repetition and ubiquity but also to the awesome credibility of whatever
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is transmitted by that unblinking and apparently dispassionate electronic
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yet common sense is surely right whatever philosophers or communications theorist may say
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to urge us to be worried about the distortion of reality or our sense of it that results
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from the unavoidable selectivity of the medium. Nowadays complaints
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tend to center around televisions evident preoccupation with violence and
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its quote white racist bias unquote. Opinions may and do
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differ about the significance and justice of these charges but not even Marshall McLuhan I like to
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think would dismiss them as totally irrelevant even if public indignation
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and ritualistic self incrimination by television executives and producers did not invite
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comment. A review of the past few months could hardly avoid trying to come to grips with the
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subject. The triumph of Eugene McCarthy the Tet Offensive the decision of the
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president not to seek re-election. The death and burial of Martin Luther King and Robert
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Kennedy and the eruption into riot of scores of American cities were all
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phenomena which either could not have happened at all before the video age or would have happened in a
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very different way to have ignored all this in favor of such interesting but
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less urgent topics as the motherless family and serial drama and situation
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comedy would have been easier than trying to come to grips with what I suspect are insoluble
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problems. Nevertheless it would have been a dereliction of duty
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in the words of television critic Neil Compton. What does America
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street think about the portrayal of American life on television.
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No matter what you think is glaringly inaccurate
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thing it is the colors that everybody.
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Buy.
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Well well no
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particular profound
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or superficial life. I was going to mention the family situation which is was
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because as an adult you don't have very
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good chopping him down and I think it does it they're letting him
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truly down.
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I've watched this show and tried to be very one of the writers
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on there. To me they're not getting down to the nitty gritty black
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men in them are true. It's the black men in America the big.
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For instance I've noticed how clever the writers are to sleep
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in a little excerpt of black or something brief look everything into pertaining to
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life. But they have a smooth smooth out. I guess they are restricted in a way that
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they feel as though they don't want to offend anyone. One of the
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things that there are that I dislike about the show is that why do they
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always have to procreate a black woman as being a weirdo and having no
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husband and she has to struggle to try to raise a son. Realizing that in this
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case of JR The show was written around that the husband was killed in the
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action in Vietnam. And that she
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she has this job and. She's doing OK and she lives in this
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apartment like this but she has to be very careful
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of the way the word is written and it means not to offend anyone. But you know if you
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want to really get a down to earth true picture of the black man in America today
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then he ought to just write a short and just tell her just like I don't think they're offended by that. The real
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truth the real thing don't don't don't whitewash it with something else.
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I mean I think that every
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day life is so calm and so you know think about your day or think about my day
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routine a little once in a while something exciting happened. But if you put what happens
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to me and I have our show it be boring everybody.
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It can't be if it tries to be you know they can they can
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definitely show the problems in the world today. You can show us
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the problems possible solutions.
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There's a lot of people in other countries say well we think it's like The Beverly Hillbillies and
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that's a lot of the movies are just like crash
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for sure.
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That's all.
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I think people sometimes say they would lie for it to be this way that it's more of an escape kind of
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thing and this is when he comes and you see a family and the situation is how you think it
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might be and then again sometimes in these family situations that. I
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know my children and seem likely to be the ones in a new situation
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but I don't think it actually depicts the family.
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But it can't really show it accurately because it's it would be too boring to show
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to say the news programs or specials on TV which are quite
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interesting about the problems of the ghettos with with black people and
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I think that that they're very good to show people what's going on
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as far as calling a solution or being informative that's all.
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I don't believe the 90 percent of the shows on tv try to be predictive of life.
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You can't make a fashion exciting show about an average person. I don't
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believe that I could take average Joe like myself or somebody and surround
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him without putting fantasy into it once one way or the other I don't doubt or adding
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space to make it interesting. I could not make an interesting story about about
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myself or about anybody else because just there are exciting things happening.
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But we have a show week after week after week two runs consecutively.
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You could make me watch it more than once in my
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life. In English my life there's cops around
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her and there's a little program from that
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and I think of the news reports what you see is what's happening but you don't
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know for example.
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The fact remains that about
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45 seconds of castors
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about second objective of the
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protections for going for
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your life in America.
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I mean I would love to see a TV cameraman just part of me around all week
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and watch the things that do need to get approval for the Church of
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the the everyday problems I have on my job my home are come to the
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things I try to do in my community whether I get well I get resentment of whether
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these are the things that the black man comes in contact with every minute every second of it
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life I think of a Peavey camera follow somebody around like that and
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try to make a documentary series and base it on some I think he will really have something to
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sell to the to the TV world but this make believe makeshift that they're writing
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you know just picking important people stars and the like it I mean they're not they're not really talking
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representing the black man in America. Their freedom and I think
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they're more or less a friend of mine people because they feel that they're well we do it this way
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here that they're going to get mad and say well that's all I see that's all we hear
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about them something like that. So actually they have they're really caught in the middle.
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They're free of the middle class white have really a
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problem get all black you see. So you see they're caught in the middle but
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you know they have to write them according to what the what the you know and
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what the for this painting for the television time for.
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I think that there will be I think you want some things on TV
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This program has been transcribed using automated software tools, made possible through a collaboration between the American Archive of Public Broadcasting and Pop Up Archive. Please note that no automated transcription is perfect nor is it intended to replace human transcription labor. If you would like to contribute corrections to this transcript, please contact MITH at mith@umd.edu.